1899-02-22 ( 126 years old ) in Salina, Kansas, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Dwight Iliff Frye (February 22, 1899 – November 7, 1943) was an American stage and screen actor, noted for his appearances in the classic horror films Dracula, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.
Frye was born in Salina, Kansas. Nicknamed "The Man with the Thousand-Watt Stare," and "The Man of a Thousand Deaths," he specialized in the portrayal of mentally unbalanced characters, including his signature role, the madman Renfield in Tod Browning's 1931 version of Dracula. Later that same year he also played the hunchbacked assistant in the film Frankenstein. (This character, named Fritz, is often mistakenly referred to as Ygor, a character originated by Béla Lugosi in the later film Son of Frankenstein.)
Frye had a prominent role in the 1933 horror film The Vampire Bat, starring Lionel Atwill, Melvyn Douglas, and Fay Wray, in which he played Herman, a half-wit suspected of being a killer. He also had a memorable role in the classic Bride of Frankenstein, in which he played Karl. The part of Karl was originally much longer and many extra scenes of Frye were shot as a sub plot but were edited out of the final version to shorten the running time as well as to appease the censor boards. The most memorable of these "cut scenes" was that of Karl killing the Burgomaster portrayed by E. E. Clive. No known prints of these scenes survive today, but photographs of the scene were used to illustrate the scene's synopsis and are included in the recent Universal DVD release of the film.
During the early 1940s, Frye alternated between film roles and appearing on stage in a variety of productions ranging from comedies to musicals, as well as appearing in a stage version of Dracula. In 1924 he played the Son in a translation of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.[1] There was a Dwight Frye Fan Club at one time,[2] but it is currently dormant. He also made a contribution to the war effort by working nights as a tool designer for Lockheed Aircraft. Frye's strong resemblance to former Secretary of War Newton D. Baker helped land him what would have been a substantial role in the biographical film Wilson, based on the life of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, but he died of a heart attack while riding on a bus in Hollywood a few days before filming was to have begun.
Frye was interred in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dwight Frye, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Movies
The Many Faces of Dracula
2000-01-01
Universal Horror
1998-10-08
Frankenstein: A Cinematic Scrapbook
1991-01-01
Dangerous Blondes
1943-09-23
Submarine Alert
1943-06-28
Hangmen Also Die!
1943-04-15
Dead Men Walk
1943-04-12
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
1943-03-05
The Ghost of Frankenstein
1942-03-13
Don't Talk
1942-02-28
Devil Pays Off
1941-11-10
The Blonde from Singapore
1941-10-15
Mystery Ship
1941-09-03
Flying Blind
1941-08-29
The Son of Monte Cristo
1940-12-05
Sky Bandits
1940-07-06
Phantom Raiders
1940-06-07
Gangs of Chicago
1940-05-18
Drums of Fu Manchu
1940-03-15
The Man in the Iron Mask
1939-07-13
Adventure in Sahara
1938-11-15
The Night Hawk
1938-10-01
Think It Over
1938-07-24
Fast Company
1938-07-05
Sinners in Paradise
1938-05-19
Invisible Enemy
1938-04-03
Who Killed Gail Preston?
1938-02-24
The Shadow
1937-12-22
Something to Sing About
1937-09-30
The Man Who Found Himself
1937-04-02
Sea Devils
1937-02-19
Beware Of Ladies
1936-12-21
Alibi for Murder
1936-09-23
Florida Special
1936-04-21
The Great Impersonation
1935-12-08
The Crime of Doctor Crespi
1935-09-23
Atlantic Adventure
1935-08-25
Bride of Frankenstein
1935-04-20
The Invisible Man
1933-11-03
The Circus Queen Murder
1933-04-10
The Vampire Bat
1933-01-21
A Strange Adventure
1932-11-20
The Western Code
1932-09-15
By Whose Hand?
1932-07-06
Attorney for the Defense
1932-05-21
Frankenstein
1931-11-21
The Black Camel
1931-06-21
The Maltese Falcon
1931-05-23
Drácula
1931-03-11
Dracula
1931-02-12
Man to Man
1930-12-05
The Doorway to Hell
1930-10-18
The Night Bird
1928-09-16
Upstream
1927-01-30
Exit Smiling
1926-11-06
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